Author
Topic: Water logged bees??? (Read 895 times)

Moots

Ok,Newbie question...Checked on my bees at lunch, everything looked good, plenty of activity and hitting the sugar water feeder heavy. However, noticed I had a couple of bees in my water barrel that looked dead, definitely wet, but floating on a piece of partially submerged wood (more out the water than in). I went to fish her out to a different piece of wood and noticed she was still alive but seemed all wet and out of it!

Observed the same with another after work, so I fished her out and tried to capture the "look" on video. Water Logged Bee!So, have only seen this with 2 or 3 bees. But I'm wondering, is there something else going on here (i.e. sick bees?) Or is this simple the way a bee goes about drowning, or dying on occasion?

You probably have thousands of bees using that feeder, some are going to mess up and fall in. They might be the youngest field bees or the oldest. I would not worry about it. You might use some more floating material. Old timers used to use grass in the bowl of sugar water under the skep. They might just be being knocked into it by other bees landing or taking off. If the water is cold it will prevent them from functioning properly.Jim

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"If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed."--Mark Twain

I was fishing them out of my pool in the summer so they just think they can swim. :-D Looking forward to meeting you soon at one of those monthly meetings Moot.

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Psalm 19:9-10The fear of the Lord is clean,enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.More to be desired are they than gold, yea ,than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb.

More floating landing space. But expect a certain amount to wind up on the bottom unless you find something To cover like a mat. It's worse when there is a wind blowing. More wind up missing the landings. Bailey

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most often i find my greatest source of stress to be OPS ( other peoples stupidity )

It is better to keep ones mouth shut and be thought of as a fool than to open ones mouth and in so doing remove all doubt.